So my money is on the 'real market', if measured in units sold (or profit I would imagine), being the low end. The very low end.
But who wants to pedal that garbage?
You're more right than you know.
Who wants to peddle that garbage? The sales people for the rest of the human race who don't give a shite about knives but need one for whatever.
Look, we're the weird ones and the less than 1% of the worlds populace at large. We're the tiny fraction of the society that is obsessed with knives, and have raised an inanimate object to cult worship item status. We obsess over the knife like it was some kind of porn, and spend much more money on them than they are really worth. Is there anyone here who really thinks a 3.99 gas station special won't cut a piece of twine or open a package? Like the Bic pen that will sign a check just as well as a high cost pen? In reality, there is actually very little need of a knife in modern urban life in the 21st century. And people who really do need a knife because of their job, just use in most cases a replaceable blade utility knife. In the last ten years, I haven't seen one single contractor who worked on our kitchen remodel, bathroom remodel, or other work use anything but a Husky, Stanley, Milwaukee or Super Knife replaceable blade utility knife. All the stock clerks at the stores I go to carry a replaceable blade utility knife in a belt holster.
We can go on and on about steel, but the Joe Average knife user just doesn't care. If it cuts he's happy. If doesn't, then he'll either strop it on the sidewalk or chuck it in the trash can and buy another 3.99 gas station special. It's easier.
It's just like the car enthusiasts. They can't understand how someone could drive around in some plain jane Toyota when a Porsche is way better. The truth is they don't care. Few drivers are car nuts, they just want something to pick up the kids from school and take them to the soccer game on Saturday, and doesn't break down a lot. Same with knives. If the 3.99 gas station special works, the buyer is happy. And the truth is, the cheap no name stainless steel Chinese knife will work pretty well because the serrations will saw through most stuff he'll need to cut, just like the cheap serrated paring knives in the kitchen utility isle in the grocery store will work just fine on bread, vegetables and fruit. And the cheap serrated steak knives in most restaurants cut the steak because the serrations make even cheap steel viable. Aside from obsessed knife nuts wanting to show off their cult worship item of the day by using it at the table when theres a very functional steak knife there. But wheres the self glory in that?
When I was stationed in Europe, I was at Aviano Air base for some TDY with the engineers. I'd get home to my off base apartment in time to see all these Italian ladies getting ready to make dinner for the family. First thing they'd do is go out front and strop the old dark stained carbon steel kitchen knife on the stone steps. Some were some very old knives with worn down blades. Nothing fancy, just a cheap thin carbon steel blade butcher pattern and a couple wood slabs riveted on for a handle.
When the knife got too worn down to function, it got trashed and they spent a few lira and bought another one. If you mentioned spending a lot of money on a knife, they'd have thought you crazy. It wasn't on their radar or operation procedures. Their way had worked for them, their mothers, their grandmothers and all the way back to the Middle Ages. And their working husbands carry as cheap a knife as they can get by with of the same reason. Opinels Douk-Douks were designed to be cheap disposable work knives. Not cult worship items like some have made them and all knives.
The ugly truth is, aside from us obsessed knife addicts, most the world gets by very nice with cheap 3.99 gas station wonders because it doesn't matter. The cheap steel is still harder than most of what you go to cut. String, cardboard, meat, whatever. And if you want talk self defense, a lot of people have been killed by a piece of license plate material sharpened up on the cement floor of a cell, and some tape wrapped around the back end, and shoved in where it counts. A gas station knife is more than adequate to hurt someone very badly, as is a Stanley 99 for 6.99 down at Home Depot. It's only the knife snobs that think a knife has to cost a certain amount and certain xyz123 steel to be a real knife.
If Mark Hamon's character ever shows up with a Stanley 99, Home Depot will sell out by sunset the next day.
Another factor though is that carbon steel knives would be difficult for non-specialist retail outlets to display. Even if they're kept in a case, potential customers will want to handle them at some point, but the staff would then have to polish them to stop the steel becoming stained or even rusting. Easier to stock stainless in a gas station 
. You have to remember that the majority of people sharpen knives with something like this
